The company that runs Sacramento’s three largest municipal golf courses is set to take over maintenance as well on Jan. 1, saving money by eliminating 28 unionized city jobs.

Under a deal that the City Council is expected to approve Oct. 18, affected employees — some with decades of experience — will be first in line for positions with Morton Golf LLC, which handles all other operations at the Haggin Oaks, Bing Maloney and Bartley Cavanaugh courses.

The company also runs and maintains William Land Golf Course, the city’s first, under a separate contract.

Based at Haggin Oaks, the company has been running the golf courses, concessions, pro shop and driving ranges for the three largest city-owned courses since 2001, said Mike Kerton, administrative officer for Capital City Golf, the city agency that supervises the courses. The city has contracted out operations for its courses since Haggin Oaks opened in the 1930s.

It has been a difficult decision, but the city has been “cutting and cutting its maintenance budget for a decade, and there wasn’t anything left to cut,” said Barbara Bonebrake, director of the city’s Convention, Culture & Leisure department.

Sacramento’s golf course revenue has been falling for a dozen years as the region saw construction of new courses in suburbs during the housing boom. And since the recession, revenue also has declined with fewer golfers able to afford the game, said Terry Daubert, president of Morton Golf.

“In the last five years, it is the economy that has taken the greatest toll,” he said. “You have to adjust your overhead to your revenue, and that can be difficult for government to do.”

In the spring, when the city first looked at handing maintenance to Morton, the City Council also asked for an audit of the city’s golf maintenance expenses to make sure the city was losing money on maintenance. It was.

The savings come from labor, benefit and retirement costs the city will no longer have to cover, Bonebrake said.

Last year there was a $500,000 deficit from the city’s golf division. The new contract will eliminate that deficit as well as further risk to the general fund, Bonebrake said. “They will take all the risk.”

And the city will give up some of its share of profits to compensate Morton for the extra expenses it is taking on.

The city will join a national trend of privatizing all its contracts for maintaining municipal courses. Private companies handle maintenance at about 75 percent of publicly owned courses, Bonebrake said.

Some of the city employees losing their jobs may retire or move into other city jobs.

Those who want to stay at the golf course will see their pay and benefits adjusted to more of a market rate, Daubert said.

“Our goal is to keep the labor force that is here. There are a lot of really good people here,” Daubert said.

Morton hopes to wring efficiencies by having its supervisors at the golf courses pick up management of the grounds crews, too.